Meet Matt Morizio

nonsense and it was my fault. Okay, we are live.

Nice.

We're live with this good-looking young man, which I could say because I'm 63, so it's not like I'm flirting with you. Thank you, appreciate that. M&M, my favorite candy and my favorite rapper too, I might say. So, Matt Maurizio, I don't know anything about you. I know you're patient, I know you're kind, I know you have a lot of empathy. I know that you, you do things right. I could tell that about you. So we are live on LinkedIn, YouTube, and we are also live on Facebook and Chatter Social. So everyone will share the room so we can bring more people in for questions. So you're brave, you're bold. I think you're brilliant and you're darn good looking. So you need to tell us who you are.

Cool. Well, I'm, uh, let's see, where do I start? My former life, I, I started, I was a former professional baseball player, so I, that was my boyhood dream. So that's always a fun fact to lead with, with people, although that's such a, such a long way away. It still is a really fun fact to be able to share. So I played with the Royals for 5 seasons, um, and then life really accelerated quickly. I, I was recently married in my last season and had my first baby while we were trying to find a place to live. And here I am now, 7 children later with an 8th on the way. I live in Charleston, South Carolina, been married 15 years, and launched, launched my own wealth management firm a year and a half ago at 40 years old. So don't say it's ever too late to be an entrepreneur.

Wait, is that the Kansas City Royals?

Yep, you got it, in their minor league system.

Did you ever get to We have a woman on the app, Lauren Lapointe, and her— the— I don't know if you ever got a chance to meet Lauren.

I know her.

She's a granddaughter of, um, Mr.

Ewing, uh, oh, get out!

That's Hoffman. Yes.

Yeah, that's incredible. No, I never made it to the big leagues. I always— I bounced around the minor leagues, lower levels a little bit, but that's awesome.

That's so exciting. I love that. I love that. Better, better, better, better, better. Okay, so what did it teach you? Because I, when I think of the different, when I think of baseball and teams, I think of players and then I think of contracts and then I think of contracts, I think of salary and then I think of salary and like what they do and then how easy it is to lose that salary or, you know, how do you make wealth when you're having to work so hard to go up to the other thing? So tell us all about that.

Yeah, I will tell you that it taught me a ton. Less even about money, more about life. I got to be honest with you, like the way I respond to failure, I can attribute a ton to my baseball playing days as one example. And it was one of those situations where in the moment, in the 5 years I was playing professionally, I wasn't aware of what I was learning. It's more of like that rearview learning where I reflected after my career was over. I said, you know, I need to have learned something that I can take with me into the rest of my life. And I kind of sat down and that's one of many lessons where like, you know, baseball is a game of failure. If you fail in the batter's box 7 out of 10 times, you're a Hall of Fame hitter. So it is a game of failure. You have to learn how to fail because that means you batted.300 and you're one of the best hitters of all time. But that means you failed 70% of your times at bat. And that's one example that I expect failure as part of the— it's a necessary ingredient as part of success. So now I don't look at it as a negative. I just think of like, good, this is part of the journey. It has to be. Baseball also taught me that you're never as good or as bad as you think you are. And the day is never as good or bad as you think it is. I learned that in a couple different ways. We play 100— in the minor leagues, 140 games. In the big leagues, 162 games. There's always a game tomorrow is what I mean by that. So it doesn't really matter what you did yesterday or what tomorrow is going to look like. You have to live in the moment, and then, and then the moment's over, and, and then the next day comes. So even whether you hit 4 home runs or you're struck out 4 times last night, it kind of doesn't matter because tomorrow's a new game. It's never as good, never as bad as you think it is. And I have just seen in my life, especially in that playing career, so many people just get replaced. There's always somebody nipping at the heels. You think about the levels of the minor leagues, there's always somebody there. And I've seen guys get released at 4 AM after a road trip only to have a replacement at 2 PM that same day in the lineup in their spot, as if like nothing ever happened. The train keeps chugging. So I recognize like I'm never as good as I think I am. There's always somebody that's behind me chasing me. And it's kind of this motivator for me and, and it keeps me humble.

Okay, Matt, first of all, that, that is motivating for everyone. And I also think that's really important for those that are in their 20s and 30s and think that they are replaceable. Yeah. And, and think that getting cocky— because, you know, I noticed on Survivor— because don't we all get our tips from Survivor? But on Survivor, those that are really cocky are like out of the game so fast. Like, they're like, one minute they're saying— so, are you writing articles about this? That, that right there, you've got two pieces of content that are amazing, and I would love to read that, the lessons you've learned by playing baseball.

I should, you know, I did write one a while back. I had a blog, and I might have to just resurface that whole thing because it was a cool reflective journey for me, but it ended up touching a lot of people that were in and out of the game because they're They're applicable life lessons, not baseball specific.

So what— so, so you're young, you go, you make it to the minors. Can I call it the minors?

Yeah, that's the minors.

Yeah, you make it to—

I don't—

I'm from Connecticut, so we had a couple of different minor teams, so you get familiar with it because they are the local entertainment and it's very exciting to watch them go to the big ones.

Maybe is one of them, is that right?

Yeah, but you know, even before the Yard Goats, there was a Red Sox— I can't think of their name, but yeah, even before that we had a great home team. But are you offered, as a young person, you know, starting to now make money playing a game, are you— do they have someone that is helping you with wealth? I'm thinking, are you a wealth advisor?

I am a wealth advisor today, a financial advisor today, yes. And but at the time I wasn't. It was actually the farthest thing from me because in the minor leagues, the, the salaries are set. They there's this players union that set the salaries for the entire minor leagues, and they're pretty low. They're better today, but when I was playing, I made $600 every 2 weeks after taxes, and for 5 and a half months of the season— of the year while the season was playing. So that— anybody doing that math, that's sub-five figures. That's less than $10,000 in a year. And, uh, I had to pick up off-season jobs just to try to live. So for me, wealth was not really a thing in my life, um, but I was surrounded by some people who had abundance of it because they were first, second, third round draft picks. So when you get drafted, you get— if you're in high rounds, first, second, third rounds, you get paid a giant signing bonus. So that's where the big wealth comes in. You make it a $7 million signing bonus but then go make the same $600 every 2 weeks as everybody else. So your wealth comes from your signing bonus. But me and the majority of people who get drafted outside of the first 3 rounds, you don't really have a signing bonus, so you don't have wealth to talk about. But then to make the big leagues, you make money again. So, you know, the big league minimum is $700,000 or something like that. So you're in this middle of life there where you're like surrounded on either ends of people making a bunch of it. And for the people who made a lot, like they leaned on their agents mostly. I didn't learn about wealth or money and the way the game of money works until well into my professional business career post-baseball. Um, I kind of— I learned about it then, and, and really my life has transformed for the better once I got into wealth management. But it was really understanding the rules of the game that has really changed things for me.

You know, I will tell you, money is something that I grew up with. I really wasn't like, understood it. I think I have like a math, you know, something. It's really hard. It was the hardest thing for me. Math has always been hard. And also, you know, the value of it, like all of that. It's interesting that I actually wasn't, and maybe I was taught it and I didn't understand it. So how much of what you do, do you feel is financial literacy? Teaching people and under— and getting them to understand money?

A ton of it. That's a great question. It's a ton of it, especially because as a society we are encouraged not to speak about it. You know, it's almost taboo to speak about it. Even in your own home, you don't bring it up. So what I've learned firsthand, and I've learned through thousands of conversations at this point with people, is that what happens in our lives is we basically inherit or adopt whatever money mindsets our parents had, but they weren't communicated. You know, with 7 children, I've learned more is caught than taught with kids. So we kind of catch whatever our parents pass on to us, who typically got from their parents, which if you do generationally, that's like a Great Depression era timeframe of parents. So we often inherit these like worry, fearful, scarce mindsets around money. And never really worked to change that. Don't even know it really exists, quite honestly, because no one's ever called it out in us. So a lot of what I do with people is call attention to that. I was just having a conversation earlier today with a really dynamic woman who's like— she's a fantastic person. She, she lives in between these two mindsets of like high-growth, aggressive, want to go all in, and super scared I'm going to lose everything and I can't, and I want I'm going to bury my money under a mattress. And she lives in this tension. One of my favorite questions that I asked her is like, where does that come from? What— give me a money story from your childhood where you think that that reflect— that's reflective of your relationship with money. Because a lot of it comes from our childhood and whether we want to do the work or not is on us. But we have to figure out like, why do I behave the way I do around money? And I bet you'll learn because I've learned through thousands of convos with people that So much of the fear around money and the worry around money is actually not money itself. It's fear of the unknown. We just have never taken the time to learn how money works. The strategies around investing, they aren't over our heads. We're taught that they are, but they aren't. It's just we've never taken the time to apply ourselves and learn. Therefore, our fear is fear of the unknown. It's not actually fear of money.

I love that. Welcome, Jason. I'm glad you're here. I will open for questions soon. Yeah. What you're saying makes a lot of sense, and I, I guess I could look back and see, um, where my money issues come to. It's funny, this morning I actually woke up and I thought to myself, you know, I'm worth more than I give myself. So I, I created, like, I just asked ChatGPT, like, you know, like, give me my— help me, like, figure out the value, and it created something for me. But what, what is your niche market? You're younger, and I Obviously, I'm thinking, my God, you could be really going to talk to all of the— those that are in sports. But then it's really hard for them because they're not making a lot of money. So I'm not sure if that's your good market, but I am curious, who do you market to? Who have you found your niche to be?

What I've learned in money, because it's so personal and so sensitive, is that the person across the table, the proverbial table, like the person that I'm speaking with, they want to see a reflection of them in some way, shape, or form because there's a comfort level there. And they don't necessarily look like me, but they maybe they have big families. They maybe they are like driven what they feel like for a greater purpose. They've always had like this mindset tilt toward growth. Maybe they want to have a family one day, or they were a former athlete, or they're an entrepreneur that really has their head down and building something big. That's the type of family and the person I call them like purpose-driven families or high-capacity families. Those are the types of people that I tend to gravitate towards and tend to gravitate towards me. And quite honestly, they're the ones that I serve the most effectively because it's my life.

It's—

I have so many firsthand experiences of my own transformation that I can share and relate to that demographic the most.

I, I, I, I, I'm like, I'm like, I have to like wake myself up. You're just so interesting. Did you tell me— did you give me the number 8?

8.

I have my 8 kids.

I have my 8th child on the way.

Okay, so let's talk about that because it's 2025.

Yep.

First of all, do you know the stats on like like the average household size is 8 now considered? Because I think years ago it would have been kind of normal, right? Is 8 now considered like, whoa, oh, you need a super duper van?

I do have a super duper Sprinter van. Yeah, it's us and Amazon and FedEx that have to have the Sprinter vans.

This is incredible. Did your wife, the hero, have a child a year?

It was about every other year or a little less than that. Yeah. So we've been married 15 years. Um, my oldest is 13, and we have our 8th child on the way. So there you go. So 8 kids in what is 13 years? He'll be 14, actually. So it'll be 8 children in 14 years.

Oh, you have the oldest son. I love that. So do your children say to you, you know, I'm the only one in the class that has like 6 other brothers and sisters with a 7th coming?

Yeah, we are. I always joke with people, I feel like I'm winning this race that I never meant to enter, but I'm winning it.

The race. Oh my gosh, I am loving this. Love to your wife. And what a beautiful life to just— but okay, but this is where wealth matters, right? And so let's share that. Share that, like, when you have 8 children, because now what does that look like to you? What are your plans for your children? What— what— I just, I just want to get into your head and understand how, because that's a lot. 8 is a lot. Your expenses, our every concept every year. So share with us, share whatever you are able to open with. Yeah, with now the hat on as your, as your wealth advisor, but also a father's hat.

Sure. The first thing I think about is that if I was waiting to be fully financially prepared, emotionally prepared, everything to have a child, I probably wouldn't even have one yet. Because, um, I think so many— the mistake of so many parents is that they wait in their life to make sure they have all their ducks in a row to feel like it's going to work out, only to find out that a child rocks your world anyway and you weren't— you weren't prepared, you weren't playing. No matter how hard you tried, you, you're still going to screw up. So I think it's really important to think, financially speaking, like, you do not need to know how you're going to afford the child in order to have the child. I would say listen to your heart and then feel, you know, find— feel like if it's your calling to have that many children, you should. I don't think you'll ever regret— there's not one that I regret having, put it that way. There's also no return policies on them, so you can't get rid of them.

I can't.

Um, so I think about that way first. Like, even though I'm a wealth manager and my job is to help people figure out how to live their calling financially speaking, I would say to people like call it reckless, but I don't think it is. I just think that if you're trying to prepare financially before you have a child, it's okay to think about things, but you'll never be ready. So don't, don't use that as a reason not to have kids. I also recognize that my life gets more and more expensive every single year as they grow more and they eat more food and they wear bigger adult-sized clothes and they do larger activities. Like, all of these things start to cost money. So when you think about your spending, your budget— you know, budget's a dirty word in my world because people think it's restrictive. I look at it like diet. Diet is also a very restrictive word that has a bad connotation. See, the reality is like the food you eat, the— whatever you consume, whatever you drink, that is your diet. Your diet is made up of something, whether you're on a diet or particular about your diet. Is a different conversation. But what we earn and what we spend is our budget. Whether we're paying attention to our budget is a whole different conversation. But we all have a budget. We all earn something and spend something. And I recognize that when you're trying to manage that budget, especially with me with a bunch of kids— I know you asked, like, a lot of kids.

Amanda, 8 kids. Dr. Amanda, 8 kids. Just so you know, Dr. Amanda just came in the room.

Oh, hi, welcome. Um, When you think about how do you, how the heck do you pay for all that? Well, when you look at what the money that goes out, the money comes in, the only way to have more money at the end to afford things, you have two options really: spend less, earn more. And I'm here to tell you that most people I work with, they're responsible with their money. They don't really have a spend less option. There are some things, there's some fat to trim, But the reality is like very few can say, well, I guess I don't need that yacht. I guess I could sell that. You know, it's not like that. Most people are like, well, I guess I could sell my house and move to the middle of the country. But then like that's a detriment to your entire family's lifestyle. So that's not a reality. You know, there's only so many subscriptions and so many lattes you can trim from your budget to realize like, I actually think the, The missing piece that most people in my role, in my seat as financial advisors, don't speak enough about is that you're probably needing to figure out how to earn more. Spending less is a healthy habit, potentially, but I think the earn more conversation actually needs to be had a whole lot more.

Okay, this is so interesting. I think, Dr. Amanda, if you're able to speak, are you Are you with Harvard or you attended Harvard? Sometimes it's hard to, to unmike, so we'll wait a second. Okay, so, um, if she's available, she'll come out. What if you have— what if all 8 kids are all—

I have— you mean like, what are the boys and girls? I have 4 boys, 3 girls, and the last one is a girl, so we'll have 4 and 4.

That's amazing. Now what if they all want to go to Harvard?

I'm going to have them pay. The reality is like they have to have some skin in the game. That's, that's the way it works. Like I say it like this, if you pay no money, you pay no attention. If you pay a lot of money, you pay a lot of attention. So if they really want to go, they've got to get some skin in the game.

Wow. Yeah. Oh my gosh, you are— you're really different than a lot of the other financial wealth advisors. I almost think you're a little earthier and you're more like down to earth. I guess you're just sharing like real life stories. So, so how, how are you saving? Like, what does that look like with your saving that can help other people just by hearing what you're doing?

So I have some money that I set aside for my children, and I kind of have it in one giant pot. I have so many kids that I had like one, one pot of money as opposed to like separate accounts for each one. And essentially, when they get to college, when they get of college age, then we're kind of, kind of divide that by 8 at this point, which is wild to say, but divide that by 8 and sort of say like, this is each person's chunk roughly. I don't think there's a perfectly fair way to do that. But, um, I'm not an advocate of college for college's sake, believe it or not. I think if there's so few professions— doctor, lawyer— there are certain, uh, certain professions that the barrier to entry is college, is a college degree. And if you don't have it, you can't play the game. So I get it. Like, if you're going to a profession where you need a degree, then college is a prerequisite. You've got to do it. But for the other 95% of professions out there, I'm not convinced today that you can't learn more about your future, more quickly about your future using things like AI or joining certain masterminds in related fields where you're gonna learn real life skills or just sacrificing pay for a year at 18 as an apprentice to somebody. You know, like let's say you want to learn how to sell. Because that's a life skill. You can sell solar panels, you can sell light bulbs, you can sell software, you can sell— you know, if you learn the art of selling, you can sell a whole— you can do a whole lot of things. Let's say when you're 18, instead of going to college, you find some sales mentor online that's an influencer or whatever you want. You pay $5,000 for their life, their program, and then you say to some software executive that you know that's a neighbor or something— I'm making all this up— You say, hey, I just would love to shadow your top salesperson. I don't want— you don't have to pay me a dime. I just want to see what their life is like. And you do that for 6 months. Tell me you're not going to be more prepared for the world than 4 years of a college degree. So I think of things like that. And that's how I articulate it to the kids. I say, look, you got a pot of money. If you want to use it on a college degree, you know, let's say, I don't know, it's $50,000, $20,000, whatever the number is. You want to spend the extra few hundred thousand dollars of debt to get a degree, that's on you. That's your choice. Or you want to use that money and apply it toward what I— things like I talked about, and eventually maybe build a business. And great, that's your money. You're 18, you can do it how you want now.

Wow, I, I love your focus. I think this is so, so cool, and I like that you're a little younger. So let's go back to Okay, you look at— you're looking at my financials and you're like, I don't know, Adrian, you're going to need a little bit more. You're going to want to earn another $100,000 next year on top of what you're already earning. And then I say to you, well, I would say to you since yesterday, oh my gosh, I can do it because I have a way to do it. But because there's something that we were able to create and actually turning these podcasts into books has been right.

Right.

So I'll send you your chapter preview. To review. But my point is, is that, my point is, is that, um, what can other people do? What if they don't have that option? What if they're hourly? Where else? What does that look like for the majority of people that are not on the top 3% but more the regular folks?

I would say that creativity follows commitment in that, meaning Often people wait for the magic potion and the magic bullet to hit them to then go and run toward it. But I've found, as you start to— when you start to think of— get— think about different options and things that you maybe could do, you commit to something. Let's just say you're committing to thinking of new ways to earn income. I'm going to do it for 10 minutes every day. I'm going to commit every morning, even if I sit for 10 minutes with a blank head for 10 straight minutes, I'm going to do it. I'm gonna commit to the idea of trying to figure out ways to earn more income. I promise after 10 days, you're gonna have some ideas that you never had in your whole life, but it's only because that creativity followed your commitment to deciding, I'm going to start thinking about this stuff. So I would tell people, you probably can figure out ways to earn more income. You just haven't given yourself the freedom and the space to think about it. And you need to, if that's your situation, you need to. Sometimes people are super well qualified and well gifted. They might be on the wrong bus though, meaning like, hey, this bus that they're on using their gifts in the career they're in may only get them to $100,000, but they need to earn $200,000 based off of their life. And that bus they're on can never get them there. And they have to come have that come to Jesus moment to say like, I need to move buses. I am on the wrong one, even though I love where I'm at. If I'm trying to get where I'm trying to go, this bus stops. This bus doesn't take me there. So I would encourage people to, to go there. And I steal this line from Rory Vaden, who has a company called Brand Builders Group. He said it better than anybody I've ever heard, so I just use his words, not mine. He says, you are most uniquely qualified to serve the person you once were. So if you're struggling to figure out like, what do I do? Then I say, think about the trials, the struggles, the things you've overcome. Your purpose often lies next to your greatest pain. So think about how you got through that stuff. What did you use and what did you do to get through that? And then how can you use your unique gifts to go and serve that person who's also going through a similar trial? I promise there's business in there.

Wow, there's, there's something really extraordinary about you. I, I, I, you know, I produce a lovely podcast. I absolutely love it. And, you know, a lot of financial wealth advisors— I don't think anyone's come on with kind of a motivational way to teach. So how do people— like, why would someone want to work with you? What does that look like? What do they need? To know about you and know what they need to do in order to, you know, make that phone call and then start to work with you? Is it just a conversation? Like, what does that look like?

It is a conversation. But, but I would first say there's something like 330,000 registered financial advisors in the country. So there's the right person out there for everybody. The person that I probably can best help is somebody who has this mindset of growth, who feels like there's a bigger calling on their life, that, that is struggling to make sure that they're on— they're using their gifts wisely and they're stewarding their wealth well. Meaning they're not— they're probably already pretty successful from the world's eyes, but it's like they need, they need a, a Sherpa along their climb of Mount Everest, you know. They're like They know they can do it, but with a guide, they feel a whole lot more confident about the journey and maybe can get there more quickly, more safely. Um, it's those people that I'm going to help best, those people that their whole life have gone against the grain because they know that to live an extraordinary life, by definition, they're going to need to do something extra. They're going to have to look different, you know, by definition, fitting in means your life looks like everybody else's. And the most people I work with that I can serve the best are on purpose doing things differently because they feel called to live a different life than everybody else. They feel called to a place that most people aren't going to. So those are the people I can work with. And if you want tried and true straightforward financial advice that's relatively textbook, like, I'm not going to be the right person for you because I invest in a way in individual stocks that looks very different than most people the advice I give, you've probably heard some of it, that it's, it's not typical advice. Because often when you're on a journey that's atypical, it's illogical to think I need advice that is like everybody else's, even though I feel like I'm on a journey that no one else is on. You know, you're going to need to hear, hear things that no one else is willing to tell you or knows to tell you because they're not on that path. So it's really a unique person that I probably can best serve. It's not that I can't help other people, that's just the person that I I can really come alongside and, and help out.

Yeah, I could see that. I could see you being a trusted advisor. I think everyone needs to have around the table. Now, the reconstructing wealth is interesting because I'm thinking, wait, I had it and I now I have to reconstruct it, or am I getting my meanings wrong? Because I'm almost thinking, wouldn't it be constructing wealth?

Yeah, it's a common mistake, uh, or a common thought. I don't want to call it mistake, because you're right in thinking that. What— where the, the mission and the heart of the business, right in the word, is my mission is to over the long term reconstruct people's relationships with money. Because I found that how people view and use money is the limiter in their life. It's the thing— it's the ceiling, the glass ceiling they can't break through. It's not the marketing tactics and strategies. Identity precedes destiny. So like, people, if they can't live into that future wealthier version of themselves emotionally, they'll never get there. It's the reason all lottery winners— 80% of lottery winners lose their money in 5 years. That statistic exists because the lottery winner is often a paycheck-to-paycheck mindset person who all of a sudden has a windfall of wealth, yet they are mentally, emotionally, they still embody what a paycheck-to-paycheck person embodies. And they never take the time to learn how to uplevel their internal state, to understand, like, to reconstruct their relationship with money, to become that multimillionaire that they now are. Therefore, their body sort of works to retreat back to what's known and comfortable.

It's crazy. It is crazy. But you kind of explained it. I think most of us think like, oh, it's the curse of winning the lottery. 'Oh, it's poor decisions. It's, uh, they just spent all the money, or they, you know, they donated it all away.' No. Wow.

No, money has no emotion. Money doesn't care where it is. Like, we assign emotions to money all the time, but really, like, what does money care if it's in your bank account or somewhere else's, right? Like, it's on us to steward it well, to figure out how to use it effectively. And if we don't, then what ends up happening is it sort of just moves through us and finds its way to somebody else. That's just how it goes.

I definitely— if you yourself— I know you guest on podcasts, but if you, you have a lot of great information, there's something about you. Anyone here that— hi, Haley— anyone, um, would like to say anything while we have Matt in the room? Feel free to unmute. If you would like. Haley, if you want to come up, please come up. We only have a few more minutes though. Matt, any question that I should have asked you that I didn't ask you that you do want me to share with my, you know, 3 followers?

Wow, thank you for that. You've asked, uh, a lot of fun questions, and you've also been super complimentary. So just thank you for having me on the show, and thank you for like pouring encouragement into me. That's been really— this for me has been like cup-filling, you know? That's been awesome. So So I really appreciate that. I think the one question a lot of people that I think you probably— people are listening, if they listen, are asking themselves is like, well, how do I even get going with my money? Maybe not even from a starting point. Maybe you have a 401k or whatever it is and a whole lot of money somewhere, but like, how do I really take the reins of my financial life? That's a fair question. And to me, I would actually start with saying it's— it begins with some awareness. You have to actually start to think about like, how do I respond internally? How do I emotionally feel when I open up my bank account, when I look at my investment accounts, when I swipe my credit card? All the things where like money's in motion. How do you think about that? Do you get emotional? Do you get stirred up? Like, start there. Because here's the truth: if you're trying to build a beautiful garden and there's just a ton of weeds in your garden, even if the fruit starts to produce, you still have weeds growing right next to the fruit in the same soil. You've got to pull the weeds. You can't just trim them with the, the hedge clippers or the weed whacker, you know what I mean? The roots are still there. So you have to actually— like that lottery winner— you have to go deep into figuring out like, what is it about me that causes that? Why do I think that way? What happened in my life? And then you have to start to reassign new meanings toward money. You know, you actually have to reassign what that wealth is used for in your life and who you're called to serve, because it's never about you. That's the trick about money. We all get worried and emotional about money because we make it about us, just like anything else. Like if you're going to post on social media, the reason you get nervous and anxious about it is because you're worried about what people will say about you. Like, it becomes selfish, as opposed to thinking like, with these words, who can I serve? Who's this going to help? Same with money. With these dollars, who can I help? Who can I serve? When it becomes about we and not me, you're going to be in a healthy place. So I would actually start there. And then if you really don't know where to be, where else to go, quite literally you could ask ChatGPT. You could say, hey, Here's my situation. I have this much in retirement. I have this much. I need to earn this much. Whatever you want to give it. Say, where do I begin? Or what are the right questions for me to ask? Or do I want to hire an advisor? If I do, what do I have to ask them? Honestly, start there. It's going to pull from infinite more data sources than you or I have in our head, and it's going to distill these questions that will get you on the path you need to get on.

Amazing advice. Wait, one more question. I, I'm sorry, have you, have you run into this a lot? Um, let's just say a family member who was told by their parents, oh, you're, you know, you're, you're in the will, you're going to have money in the estate, we're taking care of you. Maybe the, the parent will say your sibling, you know, whoever that sibling is, older brother, older sister would take care of you and you kind of have that mindset, but then as you As, like, you know, when, when things actually happen in life and, you know, maybe the parents have passed away and, and you have the estate, but then it doesn't turn out like that. Have you seen any cases where you kind of almost someone in the family has gone through thinking, oh, I've got this generational wealth, I will be okay, I don't need life insurance, I, you know, the family will take it, and then it's all pulled. Due to like maybe a family member? Have you like seen or heard that happen?

Yeah, it gets ugly, especially at death and money. Nothing makes people act stranger than finances, I've learned. You know, investing and emotions, they don't play well in the sandbox. And the same is true of just transfer of money and emotions. That just gets really messy. Unfortunately, I've seen families break up, you know, certain family members not talk to other family members as a result of changes of the will prior to death. When the argument is the parent's relatively incapacitated and it wasn't in a headspace to be able to approve that change. It's nasty. And here's what I would say to that person is it's not that transaction or that the result of a dishonest family member or whatever that situation is where you don't have— now you no longer have money that you are banking on. I would say back up into your mindset today and say, why are you living in a way where you're waiting for somebody to die in order for you to live? I think that's the real problem.

Good.

Oh, Matt, Matt, you're gonna go so far. I really hope that you carve out a motivational time to not not just, you know, work with clients, but actually to take large groups. I see you on the stage. I see you doing a lot of different things.

Come on, Andrea, thank you for that.

Let's call Tony Robbins. I see Tony Robbins. I mean, no, you're good, Matt. You're good. Um, Jason. Jason's got his hand up. Meet Jason. He's cool. Hey, Jason, take the mic.

Hey, nice to meet you, Matt. Uh, thanks a lot. It's great, great listening. And, uh, thank you, Adrian. And, you know, um, baseball, uh, is super fun. And I liked your analogy about, you know, you're right, you know, you strike out like 7 times, you know, before you— and you're a Hall of Famer, you know. But, uh, just a good reminder of those things. And it's— congratulations on your success. Obviously you're a good leader and motivator, so I appreciate you. Thanks.

Thank you for that.

I know, very nice. Jason's awesome. What state are you in?

I'm in Charleston, South Carolina now. I'm originally from Boston, so when you, when you were talking to the doctor about Harvard, I, uh, I lived right outside of Cambridge before. And yeah, I've been— spent many days there.

We are so lucky. Oh, go ahead, Jason.

What's your perspective on, uh, Bitcoin? Um, are you a big, uh, believer in that? Uh, and I, and I wanted to ask you, is it, is it similar to like gold these days? Because it's kind of almost like a, a limited, uh, type of thing now because it's like evaporating because however many they're made or something. How does that work?

Yeah, it's, it is similar to that in that, um, there's a finite amount of it, so the value is in the scarcity of it for sure. Um, I don't disagree that that blockchain technology is going to be part of the banking system of the future. It already is. So I think that blockchain technology, what, what it does is it allows you to be your own bank. You have your own little secure square cube you live in, and you can wire money directly to another person who has their own secure square, and it's all traceable and, and, um, protectable, where you almost eliminate a bank, a need for a bank in that transaction. There's no middleman there. So it's a really disruptive technology to financial services in, in particular, because now all of a sudden you don't need these super rich institutions called banks that have deep pockets and a lot of lobbyists on Capitol Hill to, to make sure that they will exist, right? So I actually think that blockchain technology is going to be hard to, to really fully disrupt because of that. There's, they're going to be a lot of headwinds for it. That being said, I don't discourage clients when they really want to get into Bitcoin or any other crypto. I personally don't invest— when I'm investing on behalf of clients, I don't invest in it. And the reason is it's not about me liking it or not liking it. When I said earlier, emotions in investing don't play well in the sandbox. When a client entrusts me with their entire life savings to say, hey, look, I need you to make sure that you're managing this well so that I can one day use it to live, live. I need to have an abundance of data to make my decisions and discipline, a disciplined process to make my decisions. And there is not enough rationale or data behind the scenes for me on Bitcoin in order for me to make a good buying or selling decision. Right now, Bitcoin trades a lot like, like a fine art would, like a Monet or something. Its value is often in the perceived value that the other person is willing to pay for it. Like, a Monet might be worth $12 for me because I don't want one, but it's $12 million for another person who loves fine art. Bitcoin is kind of similar. Now, there is more substance to it, but its value right now at least has been inflated because so many people think it's worth a lot. So more people are buying it. And that's the reason I— it has nothing to do with whether or not I think it's a good investment. For me not to invest in it, it's because I have a data, a really disciplined data-driven process of what I'm buying, when I'm selling, what I'm going to reinvest in. And if I don't have the appropriate amount of data behind it, I just can't— in good, in good faith, I can't make those decisions on behalf of somebody's life savings.

That's a— Jason, killer question.

I love it. Yes, thank you so much. For clients like that, I encourage them to, hey, say, hey, take a small percentage of your investments and open up your own, your Coinbase account or something, and, and buy whatever— XRP or Ethereum or Bitcoin, whatever you want to buy. But just know that there is a chance on an investment like that that it can go to zero. Most investments, like, in the market that I am investing in, I particularly investing in stocks, it's hard to imagine the $100 billion company going to zero tomorrow, you know. Like, there's going to be some predictability to that, to say, like, hey, this company's in a pretty, pretty deep tailspin, and I can usually get out of that well before they go to zero. Bitcoin, I don't know, you know, there may, may or may not be that.

Wow, um, you know, the other coins, are they based on nothing then? Like, what are they— what are they based on? Is it just like what you were talking about really, like theory and kind of fun?

Yeah, they are— they are what somebody else thinks they're worth. Um, it's a hard one to—

so it's a hard one for me, and that's where it gets dangerous because they can just be like— the owners of it can just pull, right?

Sure, yeah, I mean, people can decide that Dogecoin no longer is a thing, you know, or Trump coin is not going to be worth it. Like, these are— and then when they just— when, when the masses decide that it's actually not a valuable thing anymore, the, the price of it tanks. And there's no, there's no predictability to that because humans are irrational. So like, when you're trying to predict an irrational person times a zillion, you know, however many people are investing in it. It's an impossibility. The future is impossible to predict as is, never mind trying to predict human behavior.

Great questions. Hi, Nuala. Welcome, Nuala. I want to be careful of Matt's time because of what we're doing. So thank you so much. And I will say, I'm going to say it, Jason. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. You know, Matt, one of the— like we talk about ChatterSocial, we're live on ChatterSocial because you're hearing voices. And I've been doing PodMatch guests. And they're always like, wait, I've never had this happen. Have you ever had a part where— have you ever been on an interview where there's been live people?

Never, never.

So I'm gonna do it, Jason. On Chatter Social, we have two people that come in that teach, and we are so lucky. One, you may know the names, beautiful woman Cindy Stumpo out of Boston.

Okay.

And the other one, you may know the name Grant Cardone.

Yes.

And we're very lucky. So if you— we, we are all here And this is kind of what it looks like. And Nuala is going to say a quick hello.

That's cool.

Hi gorgeous, another fabulous podcast. Lovely to see you, Matt.

Hi, nice to see you too.

Nuala is from— oh, I just messed that up. Oh, sorry. Uh-oh. Nuala, can you guys hear me? Sorry about that. We can hear you. Okay, sorry, I just— I did that stupid camera. So I will send you— Chatter Social is free.

Cool.

It is. The founder is a young man that we are all supporting him. So it's really interesting. Nelson Apega. As a matter of fact, he— I just did— I have a PodMatch book coming and all 15 of the interviews are done on Chatter. And then my next book is coming. So that one happens to be with Alex.

So cool.

Alex, I don't know if you're using— do we meet on PodMatch?

Yes.

Yep, I love PodMatch. So Alex was a great interview. But anyways, so love to have you on. I think that this is a conversation we need more, uh, more, um, you know, it's nice to support. There is no cost to it. But if you do like to do rooms or, you know, have conversations about it, we would love to have you on there. So you could just come and try it. I do Debate the News True Crime Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7 PM, uh, because sometimes I not only do I look like that Warmed Over. I actually talk about that, Warmed Over. So thank you so much. So now I have to close out and I won't be able to talk because I'm going to shut the room down. But thank you. I'm going to send you, um, Matt, I'm going to send you a copy of like what the chapter would look like, a preview of the chapter, because you were really giving some great information. I just— so, and I'm just going to end this. I'm trying so hard. I really do want to change. I am listening to some like motivation listen in some tapes at night. I would love if you had created, like, a motivational tape, a blog, articles. You have so much in that amazing head of yours and teaching people like me, you know, I am that— I'm the picture of the person that needs to hear from you and then needs to make some good decisions. So that's so cool.

Well, I will say that if I've recorded a 3-part video course of just some of, some of what we talked about, like the emotions, the the science behind it, also some nuts and bolts of actual practical, like, financial management. Um, and it's free. And if anybody finds me on Instagram, it's— I'm probably most active there. It's just my name.

So it's not on your website?

Um, it's not on my website right now. So it's okay if you go to my Instagram though and you want to send me a DM, you know, you follow me, I'll send you a link to it. I'm working on transitioning it to my website. It's hosted on a different site right now. But, um, but send me— anybody listening wants to send me a DM, I'll send it to you for free. And And maybe that's a cool starting point.

Oh my gosh, I love that, Matt. Thank you so much. Okay, that is the thing. So you're gonna get us your, um, I— you're gonna get it from me so I can send it out, and then I will— this will turn into show notes and be more. This is just a live. Uh, thank you for being brave enough to do a live. I'll end it now. Thank you guys for watching it. Thank you for everyone in the chat room. You're special to me. Thank you. Have a great day. I'll be back in touch with you.

Okay.

You're awesome.

I appreciate you big time. Thank you.

Bye-bye. Bye.